


sucre et épices | sugar and spice

by FLWhite



Series: mes fils stupides [5]
Category: SKAM (France)
Genre: Banter, Domesticity, Fluff, Groceries, Homework, Light Angst, M/M, Meeting the Parents, Piano, Post S3, Slice of Life, very light, you can barely taste it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-07 10:09:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 5,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18408485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FLWhite/pseuds/FLWhite
Summary: A series of post S3 vignettes first posted on my Tumblr. Variable length. Mostly very fluffy and cozy and PG. Some a little R-rated. Meeting the parents, doing homework (or attempting homework, anyway), grocery shopping, playing the piano together, and other snippets.





	1. the Land of Pécho

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: PG
> 
> Lucas groans awake to an urgent _tap tap tap_ on his door, feeling approximately as cheerful as a mummy.

**1\. the Land of Pécho**

**4 Avril 2019 | Jeudi 21h12**

There's nothing worse than being roused from an unplanned nap. Well, _some_ things. But not that many things. Lucas groans awake to an urgent _tap tap tap_ on his door, feeling approximately as cheerful as a mummy. 

"Hey kitten! Kitty-cat!"

Beside him, Eliott snuffles and presses more closely against his flank, quite asleep and infinitely charming. Lucas refrains, therefore, from actually yelling. "Mika? What?" 

Mika is evidently unable to hear Lucas over his own crescendoing voice. "Kitten!"

Cursing, Lucas throws himself from the bed, thrusts himself into what turn out to be Eliott's joggers, and, pulling at them to keep from tripping over the hems, lurches toward the door. "What do you want," he hisses, shutting it behind him as he crosses the threshold.

"Ah, I thought you'd died in there," Mika grins, as though it were not clear that Lucas is three seconds away from headbutting him in the jaw. "Your turn to load the dishwasher, _mon petit_."

 

* 

Eliott is blinking up at him with a little smile when he finally returns, grumbling. "All right?"

"Sorry to wake you," replies Lucas, flopping backward onto the pillows. "Blame it on Mika."

"I thought you were either doing a little evening karate in the kitchen, _hi-ya_!" Eliott chortles, "or imitating Pavarotti." He slides an arm around Lucas's middle and tugs; they tussle and laugh until every bit of bedding is on the floor except for the fitted sheet, pulled free from the mattress's corners and bunched under them. "Well, which was it?" Bobbling his head, he flicks the waistband of the joggers. "You also pilfered my pants, I see."

"Be quiet and kiss me already," Lucas says, a bit breathless, putting his hand on top of Eliott's. He can hear Mika loudly and rhetorically asking Lisa in the living room if she thinks Lulu and Elly will ever be seen again, or if they've been lost permanently in the Land of Pécho.

But it's not too hard to ignore them.


	2. that's big

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: PG
> 
> "And this must be Eliott."

**2\. that's big**

**5 Avril 2019 | Vendredi 18h43**

 

So it turns out that trying to compensate for having had four-and-a-half hours of sleep with a double espresso doesn't really work very well. Leaning against Lucas just enough to make himself felt but not enough to get themselves stared at, Eliott yawns even as he jiggles his foot.

"It'll be fine," Lucas says for at least the twelfth time since they got on the bus, bumping him. It'd be more convincing if he weren't a couple shades paler than usual and chewing his lip. "Maman is really excited to meet you. I mean, skipping Friday Mass for you, that's big."

 _Exactly,_ thinks Eliott, trying to take a few deep breaths. The collar of pretty much the only button-up he owns feels too tight. _She's gonna hate me for making her miss her Jesus._ They've only a single stop left. 

"Hey," says Lucas as the bus purrs at a long red light. "Hey." There's not nearly enough people left standing in the aisle to camouflage it, but he kisses Eliott's cheek. "Really 'ppreciate you coming." His eyes are vast, and Eliott wishes fervently to kiss him back, but a sour-faced man is examining them over the top of his e-reader. Another time, he'd do it anyway, but they're both crackling and wire-taut with nerves, and he's got to save his strength for dinner. 

*

 

At first, they can't find Lucas's mother at all. The restaurant is stuffed with gray-headed people and tourists, well into their suppers though it's still before seven p.m. They locate her at last, sipping Perrier at a four-top that has been put in a corner so that only three sides are open. She stands as they approach, her face serious. "Hi Ma," says Lucas, embracing her a little stiffly. Eliott fumbles with his hands, not sure if it looks ruder to wring them or to put them in his pockets.

But when she draws away from her son and regards Eliott, her face is like the springtime sun. Lucas turns, too; in the gentle light of the yellowy lamps, their resemblance is breathtaking. "And this must be Eliott."


	3. who wouldn't love it?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: PG
> 
> Basile prefaces his Whatsapp message with two lines of various surprised emojis. for real? parents back 2 back? u guys are hard fuckin core
> 
> And it's like the fucking crack of dawn, Arthur adds. Color me suitably impressed. Filial as shit.

  1. **who wouldn't love it?**



**6 Avril 2019 | Samedi 10h35**

 

Basile prefaces his Whatsapp message with two lines of various surprised emojis. _for real? parents back 2 back? u guys are hard fuckin core_

 _And it's like the fucking crack of dawn_ , Arthur adds. _Color me suitably impressed. Filial as shit._

Lucas snorts to himself as he types. _they're only in town today this week and we're hanging out with YOU losers this afternoon_

Yann is last to respond. _so it went well with your mom I guess?_

 _Yeah_ , he begins, thumbs hovering over the emoji keyboard. Is it too sappy—too _gay_?—to send them the super smiley one? Licking his lip, he peers at Eliott, who's looking absently out the front of the bus, phone wedged between shoulder and cheek. He sends the super smiley one.

 _god damn_ , Basile instantly replies, _didnt i tell you so i totally called it_

He locks his screen as the boys begin bickering over which of them had most accurately predicted this fortunate outcome, because Eliott is nudging the toe of a sneaker against his shin and raising both eyebrows. "Okay, hold on, I'm asking him."

"Asking me what?"

"Pa wants to know if you're sure you wouldn't prefer the other place because," Eliott looks torn between amusement and complete mortification, "they've just gotten there and somehow there is a huge group of like twenty-five American tourists. And one of them found a hair in their _café au lait_. So it's kind of a mess." He rolls his eyes, but his mouth, a little wobbly with apprehension, gives him away.

Trying not to laugh, Lucas replies, "Well, I don't like _café au lait_. Do you? I like my milk nice and frothy and direct." He blushes at the face Eliott pulls. " _Putain_ , you're dirty!"

"What?" Eliott winks. Uncovering the receiver, he says, "No, pa, it's fine, just stay put. Oh? Mm-hmm, that's good. See you in ten." Hanging up, he bumps Lucas's knees with his own, his grin like the sun breaking through clouds. "He said don't worry, they've found no hairs in the pineapple juice so far."

"Wha—pineapple juice? They got pineapple juice?" Lucas can't suppress the laugh this time. "You _told_ them about that?"

"Bah of course. I told them many things about you."

"The most embarrassing things! God, they're gonna think I'm a—a _child_." 

"Pineapple juice is very nutritious." Eliott murmurs, stooping and leaning close, just a centimeter too close. "It is very sweet but also like a kick in the teeth. It's pretty to look at." He winks again, slowly. "Who wouldn't love it?"


	4. Panna Cotta Method

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: PG-13.
> 
> "I," Eliott places a hand genteelly upon his chest, "was ruminating."

**4\. Panna Cotta Method**

**7 Avril 2019 | Dimanche 12h01**

 

"Hey? Helloooo? Hey!"

He blinks and swallows. In the clear white noonday glow of his living room, across the low table from him, Lucas looks literally divine: his hair unruly, his ears rosy, his head cocked at a _gimme a fucking break_ angle, he is a small but wrathful god. "I thought we agreed. It's how the method works. Breaks only for every thirty minutes we spend on homework."

"I wasn't taking a break."

"Oh yes? You were _so_ spacing out for at least fifteen of these—" Lucas glances at his phone —"seventeen measly minutes."

"I," Eliott places a hand genteelly upon his chest, "was _ruminating_." He beams as Lucas is overcome by a snort of laughter. "Heeding my _Muse_."

"Yeah, because you need your Muse for, what was it?" Lucas, still chuckling, pops up from the armchair and sidles alongside Eliott on the sofa in order to peer at the open textbook before him. _Yes, exactly where you belong, my prickly one_. "Yeah, the Muse of the, uh, Haitian Revolution, huh?"

"Certainly. Muses come in all colors."

Lucas, absorbed by the textbook, doesn't seem to be noticing the hand that Eliott is sneaking behind him.

"That was kind of deep, actually," Lucas says. "Ooh, I like this, like, time-lapse map with all these colors. Why don't _we_ get cool—hey!" He bats at the hands Eliott has wrapped around his waist. "Stop that!"

He nuzzles, with small kisses, Lucas's cheek; resistance is steadily being overcome, he notes with glee. "If we just take all our breaks all at once, _now_ ," he says, his lips stirring the short hairs of Lucas's nape, "then what?"

Lucas, struggling only slightly in the circle of Eliott's arms, mumbles, "Then we'd have to work nonstop until we pass out. Or stay up all night."

Eliott says nothing, just smiles into Lucas's neck.

"I have two quizzes tomorrow, you ass."

"I have two bags of fresh-ground coffee. Barely touched." He pouts like a child, waggling his head. "Barely touched, just like me."

Lucas's ears have gone from a becoming pink to a ketchupy red.

"Come on, _hérisson_. I bet we'll concentrate better if we get it out of our systems. Then we can go back to your Panna Cotta Method or whatever."

" _Pomodoro_ ," Lucas says automatically, swiveling, then kisses him ferociously. "Now I'm not gonna fall for this 'let's go work at my place' bullshit next time, you know."

"Oh yes?"

"Yes." Lucas throws his arms around Eliott's neck and tugs until they are nose-to-nose. "Okay, break starts now."


	5. passacaglia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An R-rated one to break the PG-13 pattern.
> 
> Note: they are speaking of this video.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eVy67tY0J8

  1. **passacaglia**



**7 Avril 2019 | Dimanche 22h04**

 

Lucas manages to keep his temper until the third time it happens; Eliott, giggling as he plinks two Cs with his index fingers, his head bouncing from side to side like a toddler's, turns and lays a loud smack of a kiss almost directly in Lucas's right ear.

His hands jerk again to a stop, slipping against the keys with a dissonant crash. "Gah! Are you trying to fucking burst my eardrum or what?"

"Sorry." Eliott blinks contritely, but his lips are still parted by mirth.

Lucas scowls at him, but is forced, after only a second or two, to turn his ire on the sheet music, printed a little crookedly by an antediluvian inkjet Eliott had hauled down from a closet shelf for the purpose. It's too hard to keep up any semblance of seriousness with Eliott snuffling with laughter so near. "Are you going to try properly?"

"I am trying properly!"

"That three-year-old in the video was trying more properly than you."

Eliott sniffs. "She was _at least_ five." He inclines his head, eyes crescented with delight. "I thought I was doing pretty well, actually."

Lucas agrees; in fact, he's covered in goosebumps from nape to tailbone from the—he hates the word, but it's the only one he can think of—the _magic_ of their hands moving, briefly, perfectly, in harmony. But he'll die before he admits how good it was.

"Maybe if you offered me a _reward_. That would help me concentrate." Eliott nods, solemn.

"What kind of reward?"

Eliott merely smiles.

" _Putain_ , you—" Lucas rubs an inky blob coughed up by the ancient printer onto one corner of the third page of the music. Anything for an excuse not to meet Eliott's eyes. He can feel them, though, like twin sun-lamps on his cheek; Eliott's entire body, thigh-to-thigh next to his on the bench, radiates warmth.

He shifts; his jeans are growing distinctly uncomfortable. But he wants to play. He wants to feel them suspended together among the hammers and strings, cradling each other at the center of unending circles of harmony.

And there's still something surreal about sitting here again when a few weeks ago he had thought that he'd never see this room again, except in his saddest dreams. It makes him feel frightened; it makes him feel raw, like the new skin under an old scab.

"I'll take that as a yes," Eliott says, unspeakably charming. "I'll do my best this time. Promise."

*

"I'm impressed, _hérisson_ ," Eliott whispers into Lucas's neck as he, groaning, finally stumbles on a trill; he mashes his palms into the keys and leans, hard, against Eliott, half-kneeling behind him. "You made it almost all the way through.

"No—there was—a _da capo_ ," Lucas pants, letting his head drop backward onto Eliott's waiting shoulder. "Fuck, ah, Eli— _fuck_."

Eliott chuckles, settling his hand more firmly around Lucas. He reaches the other up, toward a nipple, quite exposed now that Lucas is sprawled against him face-up, arms slack and dangling. "For that, we might have to get you off this bench."


	6. control your hoes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PG
> 
> A bit of a long one. I just love writing Le Gang and Queen Imane.
> 
> (Sidaction is an annual, nationwide AIDS/HIV awareness and prevention campaign. Yes, I fudged the timing slightly for 2019's.)

  1. **control your hoes**



**9 Avril 2019 | Mardi 07h40**

 

The fez is for sure a really bad idea, though he thinks it looks kind of dashing. He drops it back into the storage bin. Cowboy hat? Also kind of dashing. Also seems kind of not great, plus the brim is a bit cracked in the back. He crouches again beside the bin and digs deep, grasping, then tugging; with a jerk, he falls backward onto his rump, but laughing, because he's found it at last.

The perfect choice for Daphné's rather last-minute Foyer Sidaction fundraiser.

A sharp-pointed black plastic crown, made shiny to look like jet, hung with purple plastic gems that he untangles as he lifts it from the jumble of other costume odds and ends. He dimly remembers his mother wearing it at a Halloween party when he was maybe twelve or thirteen.

He jams it onto his head; it's a little tight, and he's going to have really strange hair by the end of the day, but that's what hoodies are for. His phone tinkles; it's Lucas. _Good morning <3 are you doing this fundraiser shit for Daphy today?_

 _Good morning ~ <3 Well yes,_ he types. _Aren't you?_

Lucas's bubble blinks for so long that he's forced to head out the door, and then onto the crowded bus, where he tries to check if the ellipses have solidified into words, but hasn't even the room to wiggle his phone from his front pocket. Just before his stop, a little boy of maybe four or five, holding his father's hand, asks him why he is wearing a crown. "Are you a drag queen?"

"Thibault! Shh!" The father's eyes are chilly as he lifts them to Eliott's. "Sorry.

A few of the other commuters, however, are smiling; he does the same as he nods at the boy. "No, I'm not. It's to help my friend raise money to help people who are sick, and to stop people getting sick."

"That's nice to do," Thibault says, very gravely, when Eliott picks up his backpack and begins to swim through the density of bodies on his way toward the rear door. "Bye-bye."

 

*

 _I don't know_ , he sees, finally sneaking a glance at his phone in Literature; old M. Bernard's bifocals are so hefty that he really doesn't even have to do this under his desk, except out of an obscure sense of courtesy. _I wish she'd picked something other than hats._

He frowns in incomprehension and some disappointment at this—he'd been imagining Lucas in all sorts of adorable headgear all morning. But, just his luck, M. Bernard is calling on him. "Fitting," M. Bernard smirks, "that our young king here will explain the significance of Charlemagne's helm and crown being cleft by Baligant." There are a couple of titters; the only other hat-wearer is poor shy Jules, looking half-crushed by an oversized striped top hat of felt.

*

"I just don't _do_ them. Much." Lucas spreads his hands, shrugs. "Only when it gets too fucking cold."

"Yeah right." Yann snorts. "You're too goddamn precious about your _beautiful locks_."

"Remember last January, his ears looked like they were made out of that wax they put on cheeses, they were so red?"

"He almost pulled a van Gogh for real, Eliott, man." Basile and Arthur cackle at this bit of reminiscing, the former mopping with a napkin at the sauce he dribbles as a consequence.

"This isn't even a hat, though. It's a _crown_." He removes it, grinning.

"No—stop!" Lucas tries to dodge out of the way, in vain, as Eliott crowns him. He crows at the result. Le Gang, already laughing hard, are forced to put their faces in their arms on the lunchroom table.

"You're like a jaunty evil boy-king."

Lucas opens his mouth, but before he can begin whatever diatribe he intended, Imane has marched up to them, hands on her hips, resplendent under a tiara of silk lilies. "What the hell, Lucas?"

Yann, Basile, and Arthur, just quieting, burst into fresh guffaws.

"Why are you the only one with a hat?" She shakes her head at Eliott. "I'm surprised at you. I know you've got a billion." At Basile, she purses her lips. " _You_ are in deep shit, _señor_."

"It's not my hat, it's Eliott's," Lucas says, pulling the ring of plastic free. He looks immensely adorable; static has shuffled his hair so that some of it drifts about him, nearly golden in the sun. Eliott has to look out the window for a couple of seconds to distract himself.

"Whatever," Imane continues, "why is there only one of you idiots with a hat? Do you _know_ how hard we, but especially Daphy, worked on this?" She shakes her head again as Eliott twists the crown back into place on his own head. "I expected better. You know, control your hoes."

She spins on her heel and returns to Le Crew. Alexia, a papier-mâché volcano strapped under her chin through the top of which her blue hair explodes, rolls her eyes at them. Daphné is not looking in their direction at all, though that might've been the blessing granted them by her enormous, cotton-candy-colored sunbonnet.

"One of these days Imane's gonna fucking _snap_ ," Basile begins.

Arthur pantomimes zippering his lips. "Quit while you're ahead, Baz."

"Yeah..." Yann lifts his eyebrows and puts a spear of broccoli in his mouth.

"I was only gonna suggest making paper hats! Origami, guys." Basile demonstrates with his napkin; the wobbly little triangle he puts on top of his curls immediately unfolds itself and flutters to the floor. Eliott laughs so hard that his crown's gems clatter.

"Come on," he turns to Lucas, once he's recovered, beginning to crease his unused napkin against the edge of the table. "I'll make you your own crown, my liege." The guys hoot and holler, but the flush that spreads like wine poured in water across Lucas's cheeks is worth every single one of the ten thousand off-color jokes that will be sure to come.


	7. inappropriate tuna

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PG
> 
> Eliott and Lucas on grocery duty.

  1. **inappropriate tuna**



**10 Avril 2019 | Mercredi 17h13** _  
_

 

The Carrefour near the coloc is jammed with people at this hour, but he was supposed to do this yesterday and Mika's been blowing up his phone since noon with "helpful reminders." So here he is. The doors open with a plaintive sigh; Lucas enters with one of his own. At least he's not alone, for once.

A few meters ahead, Eliott rocks gently from foot to foot, studying a display directly beyond the entrance comprising a monument of chocolate eggs, chickens, and foil-wrapped bells, presided over by an enormous and vaguely terrifying stuffed animal that could be rabbit, squirrel, or slightly long-eared mountain lion.

"Look, look," Eliott thrusts a handful of small, bright cellophane packets at Lucas as he approaches, frowning down at the squeaky rear wheels of his chosen trolley. "They have these, even!" _Petit Hérisson_ chocolates! I haven't seen these in forever. We've gotta get some."

Lucas scowls. "Those look like actual turds."

"Hey!"

"We're supposed to be only getting stuff on the list." Eliott lifts his eyebrows wistfully. "Okay, fine! Get one."

"Two, one for each of us."

"Come _on_ , this is going to take seven years, Eliott. We aren't even in the fucking store yet." Eliott looks genuinely hurt; he winces. "Sorry—it's so crowded and Lisa put so much shit on her list and I _have_ to study for the quiz on the Krebs cycle tomorrow— _oof_."

The arms that Eliott has wrapped around Lucas tighten, once, twice. A pair of old women in dainty pastels, exiting with folding shopping carts in matching colors in tow, blinks at them.

"All the more reason to get the chocolates," Eliott says, finally releasing him. "May as well make it fun, _hérisson_." He smiles so broadly that Lucas finds it physically impossible to resist smiling a little too. "I promise we'll get you right back to the Krebs crap."

 

*

Forty-five minutes later, Lucas suddenly remembers the Krebs crap as he is looking between his own legs, upside-down, at a packet of dry pasta shells that has just departed the grip of his palms and now flies in a yellow arc toward the trolley with Eliott full-throatedly cheering at its helm. "He went for the upside-down three-pointer, can you believe—oh, _nice_ try, not quite!" The shells clatter against the linoleum of the floor, joining the previous packet.

"Okay, um," Lucas mumbles at the scowling couple bearing down on them behind a trolley full of comestibles and two bawling children. "Excuse us, sorry." He gathers the shells and dumps them in the trolley while Eliott chuckles at him. "We should hurry and get the rest, hein? Before they throw us out?" He thumbs at his phone. "Canned tuna, ugh, goddammit, Lisa, that's gonna be so heavy to carry back."

"Let's go look at the sale rack, there's always fun things there," Eliott replies, as though he hadn't heard. "Catch up if you can." He puts one foot on the bottom rack of the trolley and pushes off with the other, squealing down the aisle toward the back of the store. Rolling his eyes and trying his best not to let himself grin, Lucas breaks into a half-jog of pursuit.

 

*

By the time he catches up, Eliott is just putting two six-can packages, wrapped in a refined-looking pattern of mint green and pink, into the trolley. "What're those?"

"Tuna! See, what good luck, told you." Eliott brandishes the packages like they are bars of gold. "Six for _two ninety-nine_ Euro!"

"Huh," Lucas squints at the cans. "Wow, tuna _mousse_? Sounds fancy."

"Right? Should I get another? Another two, even? Stockpile the tuna for her?" Eliott beams and Lucas makes the mistake of looking. Every _fucking_ time, it's like a starship's _tractor_ beam and, no matter how he flaps his mouth in protest or scrunches his nose in disapproval, he's helpless against it.

Evidence of the effectiveness of Eliott's beam fills the trolley; Lucas surveys its contents, grimly. Blueberries, two boxes. Bacon, one package. Shells, three packets. An unusually large carrot. An unusually skinny carrot. Ham. Milk. Two heads of lettuce "because one always seems so lonely in the fridge." A mesh bag of mandarins chosen purely because one of the fruits is vastly larger than the others. And now, twenty-four prettily packaged cans of tuna mousse join the fray.

The two individually wrapped Petits Hérissons ride proudly in the space where a toddler would be seated.

"Don't worry," Eliott says, pushing them toward the cashier. "I'm here to help carry."

 

*

 

He's just managed at last to coax Eliott back onto the other side of the low living-room table, where they've set up for the evening, when Mika staggers at them, making the oddest sound he's ever heard coming from Mika's mouth—which is certainly no low bar. " _Ki—tten_."

"Hein?"

" _Kitten_. Good thing you're doing the S stream." Mika, shaking, brandishes one of the cans of tuna mousse, liberated from its packaging. He appears to be crying, or possibly laughing hysterically. "I think your—your reading comprehension—needs work." He plops the can on the table between Lucas and Eliott, then falls backward into the armchair, curling in on himself with glee. "Or maybe I shouldn't call you kitten and make you all confused."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Lucas turns his attention back to his notebook. "Are you, like, high right now?"

Across the table, Eliott, picking up the can, has suddenly frozen. In a stricken voice, he says, " _Hérisson_."

"What!" Lucas slaps his pencil down. "I am going to _fail_ this quiz!"

"We got—inappropriate tuna," Eliott replies. He hands the can to Lucas, who finds himself blinking at the charming black silhouette of a prancing cat.

 


	8. state of nature

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PG
> 
> Eliott and friends, being sillies at the park.

  1. **state of nature**



 

**11 Avril 2019 | Jeudi 18h57**

 

 _Plik_. He swings his hand around his face and neck, thinking it an insect. _Plik plik_. Circles of wet appear on the open pages of his weathered paperback copy of _To the Lighthouse_ , and he hurries to shut the book and thrust it safely within his backpack.

He lifts his face; above, dark clouds gather in a comically small corner of the sky while the sun, slipping slowly westward through them, winks at him as it descends. The little drops of rain are scattered, almost timid, as he heaves himself upright from where he'd been on his elbows and stomach, half-buried in the grass thickening toward summer.

He drapes his pack over one arm. Lucas, Imane, Arthur, and Alexia are still nowhere to be seen.

The rain pricks the surface of the pond; the Grecian gazebo begins to glisten. He extracts his phone from a front pocket: the last message is still Lucas's _are you ready? <3 we're in the courtyard _from nearly two whole hours ago.

 _Hey,_ he types. _We should get out of here,_ hérisson. _You guys can come back tomorrow for your samples._

Lucas's reply bubble appears immediately, pulsing with its cargo of ellipses, but nothing more. Even as he feels ridiculous about it, a twitch of unease flicks through his guts. He thinks they all headed off to the left, earlier—"I remember seeing a really big patch of wood fungus over there during the party," Alexia had said, pointing—so he steps onto the path.

 

*

He hears Lucas well before he is seen. More accurately, he hears Lucas's sneakers, squeaking against the concrete. Almost reflexively, he dodges behind an oak of convenient breadth and proximity. 

" _Putaiiiin_ ," Lucas is muttering, turning in a circle, gripping two zippered plastic baggies stuffed with something dark and gelatinous under his elbows and squinting down at his phone, shielded from the elements with one hand. Evidently they had all split up in search of their precious specimens. "Arthur!" Lucas calls. "Imane!"

Eliott pokes his face cautiously a few centimeters further beyond the oak's trunk at the note of urgency in Lucas's voice and smiles to himself. Lucas's hair flops damply over his forehead; his eyes seem to occupy half his face. His jacket clings a bit, very becomingly.

Shrugging his pack more securely over both shoulders, Eliott creeps toward his unsuspecting prey. But just as he is pouncing with a growl, the others appear, rounding a turn in the path. Thus it is that there are several screams at once: Lucas, jumping half a meter straight up in the air as Eliott clamps him in a bear hug and kisses the back of his head; Alexia, starting to dash toward them with her baggie of fungus upraised, apparently thinking that she was witnessing Lucas's mugging or abduction; Arthur, clapping his palms to his cheeks and dropping his fungus altogether.

Imane just crosses her arms and looks heavenward as she rolls her eyes. But she's already smiling, just a tiny bit. "Best not to look, guys," she says, as Lucas, half-laughing and half-cursing, turns in Eliott's arms to kiss him, hard. "It's the state of nature."


	9. seras viril

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A touch of angsting here. courtesy of Angry! Hedgehog. Another R-ish installment.

  1. **seras viril**



**13 Avril 2019 | Samedi 10h18**

With profound reluctance, Lucas says into his towel, "You might have to use Mika's."

"Mm? What was that, _hérisson_?" Eliott closes the vanity cabinet and blinks at him in the mirror. "Didn't hear you."

"You—you maybe should just steal Mika's." He steps out of the tub, staring at his wrinkly toes. Eliott at the moment is too dangerous for looking at for several reasons; for one, he is clad only in a towel, and not a large one, either, having refused to take Lucas's in favor of a grungy old hand towel that barely ties around his middle.

For another, he is gazing with brows low and eyes hard into the mirror as he rubs his stubbly cheeks. A formidable look. A fatal look. A look that really should be controlled, like narcotics, like bullets. "You don't have any?"

"I do, but I don't—I don't know where it is." Eliott's incredulity, concealed too slowly with a smile, goads him from shame to snappishness. " _Putain_ , look at my face! I don't need _shaving_ cream."

"All right," says Eliott, mouth perfectly neutral; a giggle, however, crinkles the corners of his eyes. "So that's why this razor's so shiny and new?"

The bathroom door is too old, the jamb too off-center, to slam satisfyingly; it only clacks and swings slowly open again. But Lucas has long since streaked, towel clutched around himself with both hands, into the bedroom. That door does a much better job of banging shut.

*

" _Hérisson_. Lucas." A rustle: Eliott must have put the top of his head against the door. Lucas wedges his shoulders more firmly against it. "Hey. I'm sorry I teased. Can you at least pass me my underpants?" Now his voice comes directly at Lucas, softly, from the sliver of a gap between door and frame. "Lisa poked her head out of her room and made the scariest fucking face at me just now."

"Serves you right." He chews at the inside of his lip.

"Lucas." He can't stop himself from imagining Eliott's penitent face, mouth drawn down in a pretty parabola, eyes big, a day's shadow over his jaw and upper lip looking terribly, terribly becoming. _How fucking unfair it is_ , he sighs to himself. "Lucas, please."

"What do I get if I let you in?"

Eliott is momentarily silent. It occurs to Lucas that it's maybe not the manliest thing to do, making one's boyfriend stoop in a hand towel outside one's bedroom over one's own deficient follicles. His fingers begin to turn grudgingly on the lock.

"What do you want?" Eliott says, low. "Do you wanna come help me shave?" The hiss and curl of his voice around _raser_ closes like a fist around Lucas's defenseless dick.

*

Later, trembling against the tiles surrounding the tub, eyes shut and mouth open, a final coherent thought, more amazement than ire, drifts past Lucas: _how does he_ always _fucking win?_


	10. tu me dessinerais comment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PG
> 
> A dollop of angst atop a bucket of sap. Can't believe I wrote so many of these.

  1. **tu me dessinerais comment**



**14 Avril 2019 | Dimanche 11h26**

The bus is very late; the large crowd gathered at the stop, rustling their shopping bags and unbuttoning the too-heavy jackets they'd put on in the coolness of morning, are beginning to grumble. He can't help bouncing a little from foot to foot, pinching his lips between his teeth, as he scrolls backward in his chat history for what must be the third or fourth time since waking.

 

**_08 Avril_ **

_yay, not too hot next Sunday, 9's the high **16:55**_

_perfect <3 **16:55**_

_I can come get you around noon **16:56**_

_parents want to eat dinner and go to the movies Saturday before they leave again **16:56**_

_otherwise I'd just spend the night and leave from your place hehehe **16:57**_

Lucas's answering text bubble had appeared almost immediately.

 _How about I plan this one, actually?_ **_16:57_**

_I have a good idea. **16:57**_

 

His thumbs are arrested mid-dance as he rereads. He inhales: the sweet stink of exhaust mingling with the faint bitterness of the young leaves hanging from the honey locusts overhead, overlaid by the heady sugar of pastries stacked in someone's paper bag. He exhales.

Almost a whole week later, he can still taste Lucas's fear, pulsing from each pixel behind the glass of the screen. A small spurt of answering annoyance still rises in his throat, to float like fresh grease above the sour, sludgey sea of his guilt. He'd started and deleted several messages in a row.

At last, he'd managed _let's save your good idea. no houseboats involved, haha_ and sent it before he could change his mind.

 _Okay..._ Lucas had replied. His next message, a couple of hours later, was asking for help with _Antigone_.

The bus arrives just in time to save him from having to apologize for being late; he is shuffled on board and has hardly the time to put his bulging backpack at his feet before he is pinned in place among the crowd.

_*_

"But no," Lucas says, eyes very big and very blue, as they are disgorged from the bus; one of the bottles inside the reusable shopping bag he carries on his shoulder clinks against its companion. "Eliott, it's the middle of the day!"

"Will you be our lookout, then?" He takes Lucas's hand, chuckling at the resulting little jump. "Come."

 

*

The lock is a little stubborn today. "What if someone else comes," Lucas is saying behind him. "What if someone notices the gate being open?"

He smiles. "We must be quiet then, no? And you're looking out, aren't you, _hérisson_?" Sighing, Lucas pivots to scan the street, which remains as quiet as when they'd first arrived; a small dog yips once or twice from inside a house.

At last the lock opens; he muffles the rattle of the chain with his fist. "All right!" He hoists the backpack onto one shoulder and chuckles again at Lucas's nervous pout. "Come!"

 

*

Even he has rarely come here before dusk. It is very different, under the sun, and with Lucas beside him. Very different from the last time he was here, too. The light flicks and flutters, landing like dots of golden confetti on Lucas's hair and cheeks and hands, which are clutching the bagful of bread and cheese and ham and pears for dear life.

"Eliott," Lucas finally says, when they reach the underpass. It is easy to see to the other side, in the daylight. Something aches a little behind his breastbone. "Are you—?"

He turns, smiles extra wide to reassure. "I wanted to draw you properly." He puts his backpack onto a concrete slab and slides out his pens and pencils and the paint-speckled masonite drawing board with a piece of blank Bristol already clipped in place. "Here," he says, handing Lucas a mylar blanket, origamied into a neat little bundle. "Spread it under that big linden-tree and have a seat, will you?"

Lucas's eyes glitter above his small grin. "And you made me haul all _this_ here?" He nudges the bag of groceries, long since plopped unceremoniously on the leaves, with his sneaker. "So you could draw me with crumbs all over my face?"

"Yes," Eliott answers that look in the only way possible; he bends, curling his forearm behind Lucas's nape, and gives a slow kiss. "And all over the rest of you." He kisses again, letting his tongue lick the corner of Lucas's mouth. "We'll be here a while. We'll get hungry."

"Ah yes?" Lucas's lashes tremble against his cheek. "How thoughtful. How cozy."

"It's my place," he replies, whispering. "But you make it home."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks very much for reading! Do leave a kudos and/or comment if you liked.
> 
> Please be sure to check out my other SKAMFr fic, including the dreaded Maxel RPFs. 
> 
> You can also find me on [tumblr](http://xiangyu.tumblr.com) and, along with my lovely partner [@ryuujitsu (hallo-catfish)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryuujitsu/pseuds/zetaophiuchi), on[Ko-Fi](https://ko-fi.com/xiangfish).  
> You can find us on tumblr: [@hallo-catfish](http://hallo-catfish.tumblr.com) and @xiangyu.


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